


in every deed

by anstaar



Series: what we can change [5]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, POV First Person, Time Period: Reign of Ezar Vorbarra, ground view of the political aftermath of Escobarr, how to use your humanities degree for evil, newspapers as organs of the state, propaganda scavenger hunt, the sad and very tragic death of prince whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26881858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anstaar/pseuds/anstaar
Summary: The war is lost, the Crown Prince is dead, and it'ssomeone'sjob to make it clear that Barrayar has still come out on top.All things considered, it's not going to be these people.
Series: what we can change [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595479
Comments: 52
Kudos: 17





	1. prologue, or in which i am introduced in my natural setting, an absence of moral fiber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dptullos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dptullos/gifts).



> the title comes from a quote about the importance of justice in every deed. definitely taken in an ironic sense. I often write about people who have a very different moral and ethical framework than I do, this point of view is also, personally, a dick. he gets worse.

The destruction of the Ministry of Political Education was a work of art. Political art, of course, which, having spent years reviewing and suppressing it, I feel like I can talk about with confidence. You have to admire how it was carried off, even if the end result is my office completely destroyed. Actually, I’ve known plenty of people who would say that the end result is the only part they appreciate, my old friend Aleks comes to mind, but as it was my office, I was a bit resentful of being impressed. 

I still went to look at the Ministry buildings after the riots had been cleared away. Or had chosen to disperse after they saw that the Emperor had sent his eyes to make sure that justice would be fully, and justly, carried out. I don’t think highly of repetition of adjectives in the same sentence, but I will grant that reading the newspapers was what had given me a clue about calling in sick and so tragically losing the opportunity to make some last stand for my principles. Knowing journalistic integrity as I do, I knew that we would be getting articles about Ministry of Political Educations dastardly role in sending our brave boys to their deaths without the Emperor checking them off. 

The burned-out buildings leave an impressive mark. Much more than they’d shown on the news, of course. It was a warning for the other ministries, but not necessarily what you want to tell people that simple, concerned citizens are capable of if they find the will to act (to use a phrase Aleks was very fond of, in our university days).

Minister Grishnov had to know it was coming. _I_ had known it was coming, and not to put down my impressive judgment, I don’t have access to whole network of spies who can read poorly written newspaper articles for me. I wondered if some of the damage had been his work. The final choice of a man who knew there was no way out. Maybe he’d chosen to make the destruction too blatant for them to show. Maybe he’d wanted to highlight the danger people could pose, a danger that might not always be as well controlled as this show. A last conspiracy to poor out in respect for the old man. I couldn’t dedicate much time to it. I had my own problems to dwell on. 

Afterall, there I was. No job, no prospects, sitting in a dingy bar with people I didn’t like but who represented the only company left open to me. Aleks would probably say that this was exactly what I deserved. But that’s because Aleks, with all due respect to his memory, was a moralistic prick who had no problem cutting out facts that were inconvenient for his narrative. Yes, if you looked at our last fight, where I was all full of hope for getting ahead in the world and he went on about everything I could lose, and then jump jut to me in said dingy bar, maybe it would look like the universe works his way. Conveniently ignoring that Aleks dreams of noble martyrdom came true four years before, changing absolutely nothing. I haven’t seen many signs of the people taking over creating a kinder, gentler world. 

Aleks was just dead. Denis was dead too, having never made it to his dreams of being a commander. Tomas was back to the middle of nowhere, probably already married off on his father’s orders. Georgi was on ship duty. Dasha lost, and Ben too, and we all know what that means when they’re still combing for corpses. Out of my glorious cohort, Borya was the only one who had both survived and was still using his degree in comparative literature, and he was always far worse than me. And there was me, of course, but I was drunkenly thinking about my dead classmates. Which is the national pastime, so one of the common signs of depression. It would all be enough to make me bitter and cynical if I weren’t already overdosed on the stuff. 

I know, I know, the question then is, so, Mr. Yan-the-Clever, when did the young man who decided to pursue a degree in the humanities become so cynical? With your degree, can you truly claim that you were, in fact, cynical from the outset? To that, I say, of course I was. The whole point of choosing comparative literature was so I could throw my family’s ‘sacrifices’ and ‘generosity’ back in their face by studying something they’d see as completely useless. Really, you could say that the _least_ cynical move I made was joining the Ministry of Political Education with the dream of having a job where I could tell Imperial Security to suck my dick without getting arrested. And before anyone gets at me for poor judgement, it worked just fine for years. Though I decided not to use that defense when the boys with the silver eyes came knocking. At the time, I was mostly just glad it was them instead of some peasant with murder on their mind. 

It was only after the riots settled down that I really got to appreciate all that I didn’t have in my life. You don’t sit around thinking about the tragic fates of all your friends from university – and how, in a very really way, they were the last true friends you had – when you’re having a good day. Or week. Or month. Not that anyone else was having a great time. I can notice that while still being preoccupied by my own situation, thanks Aleks. This time it didn’t even make me feel better. 

We lost the war. Countless soldiers had died. A political balance of more than a decade had been overturned and eviscerated. It was all very dramatic. Personally, I try not to linger on the past. Some of my fellow former colleagues, the others stamped not important enough to further destroy, liked to talk about how the war was always going to be lost or the fate of the War Party. My mind kept focusing on my persistent unemployment. I couldn’t even get a job with a newspaper – well known as the third hand of Ezar Vorbarra, the one jerking him off under the table. As I used to say to Julia, it was no surprise that Borya had risen so quickly in the ranks. 

I hadn’t seen Julia since the end of the war. At her polite request, sent by a note. It was just what I would’ve done. Nicer, probably, as there was a suggestion that there could be a point in the future where we might be able to talk again. Still, it didn’t exactly bring much light into my life. 

Then I got a letter from my aunt saying that despite the fact I’m a worthless degenerate who brings disgrace upon the family name with my every breath, it had been magnanimously agreed I might be allowed for me to attend my cousin’s funeral. If I stayed a few meters away at all times. Maybe not in those exact words, but you don’t spend years in the Ministry of Political education without being able to read the lines. Actually, you don’t spend years with my family without being able to read between the lines. You could say that I’d practically been training for the career my entire life. Though not to most of my colleagues, as they tended to lack a sense of humor, or, at least, were far too paranoid to let anyone they worked with see if they did have one. 

I had liked Jo. He was overly earnest, but without the self-righteousness that most of my family was so good at. He was old enough to remember before I’d been the official disgrace, but he was never one to tut about what I’d done. Possibly because he was also old enough to remember that I’d already been, as it’s known in refined circles, a complete prick. I didn’t like to think of him dead in space, having marched off to do his duty without complaint. Maybe he hadn’t had complaints. Maybe he hadn’t had dreams of something other than the life of a loyal soldier sent to die in a war we were always going to lose. I don’t know. I never asked. As implied, I won’t argue that I’m not _still_ a complete prick. 

I don’t like to think about anyone dead in space. It combines two concepts I’m not keen on (that’s ‘dead’ and ‘space’ not ‘thinking about people’, for all those dead comedians taking up space in my head, Denis would’ve loved a straight line like that). Being sensitive to others ideas and beliefs, as a proper former Ministry employee, I can tell you that there’s a whole bunch of real crazies out there who have this whole isolationist ideology that usually serves as an accurate warning sign of a whole iceberg worth of crazy lurking right underneath. But when I way that just because we _can_ go into space doesn’t mean we _need_ to go into space, I’m not singing any party line. My motivation is ideologically pure, a simple complete terror at leaving terra firma. 

I don’t even like flyers. Which is just good sense if you look at the casualty statistics. Or do a quick run through of obituaries in your local daily-lack-of-news. We used to joke that flyer accidents don’t make good political assassinations because no one would be able to tell they weren’t real accidents. I did mention the usual humor level I was dealing with. But the idea of actually _leaving the atmosphere_ \- it gives me the shudders. Fighting a war in space is bad enough, though the real horror story is the idea of being on a spaceship where some minor fault is going to take you out. You have enough time to really know that something has gone wrong and that you’re completely helpless to prevent your death. Floating out there, slowly drifting towards the inescapable oblivion. It makes a good metaphor for life in general, but I don’t want to live it. I made the stupid decision to look at some pictures, once, years ago, and I still have dreams of bodies floating through space. These days I’m no believer, but it still just feels wrong. 

As it happens, I was telling some fourth-floor clerk about my cousin floating in space for eternity when the Lieutenant walked into the bar. In full uniform. With a truly agonizingly precise haircut. In a general sense, as I’ve indicated before, Imperial security can go choke, but right from the beginning I could tell we were dealing with a prime example of the breed. In case there’s any confusion, I despised him on sight.


	2. in which a job badly done is blamed on another department, which is fair enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yan continues to be a terrible person. I always struggle knowing how to tag for this, but general personal attacks and shrugging off the consequences of his, also terrible, job

It has been argued, to me, that there are probably a lot of things that deserve to be hated. Then there are just a lot of things that I hate. The first is a moral judgment, which I professionally avoid (even when deprived of a profession). The second is a value judgment, which I strongly believe in applying liberally. There are people who argue that Imperial Security is a worthy target of hatred because it promulgates the power of an unjust ruler who has the unlimited power to blah blah blah. Aleks could lure me to his room with food, but he couldn’t make me listen to his monologues. 

I hate Imperial Security because my grandfather was once a member, and that’s more than enough reason. In high language, it could be said that the honors and commendations an organization granted to one petty tyrant serve as a judgment upon said organization. In my language, I can have any reason I fucking want. But take the Lieutenant as a second example of how ImpSec invites disdain. 

There are some who might say ‘you can’t say you hate someone just because of how they walk into a bar’. Since I would have no problem hating any hypothetical person who said something like that, they’re clearly wrong. But as free as I am to hate whoever I want for as little reason as I want, this was what we call a measured judgment at work. 

Consider the fact I had available just from how this shining star of Imperial power walked into the bar. First, you can’t ignore the deliberate choice of venue. He might have looked about twelve, but he was a Lieutenant, not an Ensign. There was no way he could claim not to know what cliental he’d find behind the doors. I don’t care if he’d been in space service for the last six years – which he clearly hadn’t, he didn’t have any of the signs, for one he was still alive – knowing who drinks where is fundamental. Imperial Security didn’t casually drink in dens that catered to ministry employees, especially not Ministry of Political Education. The ministry hadn’t burned down long enough ago for those lines to have faded, or, more precisely, for all our money to have run out. He went to this bar, specifically, because he wanted something. 

To be clear, I would be first in line to say that there’s nothing wrong in that. I appreciate the vital function in society of people who want something. How much I liked them personally varied depending on if I was in desperate straits rather than flush with power, but what doesn’t? Still, if he’d come in searching for something while pretending that he just wanted a drink it would have been different. But he came in uniform. That’s not a question, it’s a demand. 

On the list of people I dislike, soldiers rank quite highly, too. This one’s story was written all over his narrow face. The most surprising thing about him was that he’d made it through the new fitness qualification. He was clearly a backwater hick who thought his uniform disguised his origins. I was tempted to give him the old class consciousness speech. Instead, I practically took Martin out at the knees to make sure I got to him first. 

What? It might have infuriated me to know that the prick could walk in fully dressed up in uniform knowing there was nothing we could do about it, but he was right. The old ‘delicate balance of power’ had been quite literally set on fire (with that ‘literally’ applying if we’re talking about Ministry buildings, Grishnov, or the War Party supported fleet). I had no work, and no hope of getting work when anyone could see my past history with ease. Once I’d acknowledged that I’d rather ask for help than literally starve (well, probably, having not gotten to that point yet, I might be claiming a false degree of self-preservation), anything that even hinted at offering a path that would save me from that became infinitely appealing. 

I wasn’t the only desperate man there, but the rest mostly melted away once I staked my claim. Perhaps their sense of pride became inflamed when they saw me willing to humiliate myself. Perhaps it was a flare up of paranoia. I’m not going to claim that it could have been out of any personal respect, because I’m not delusional. Maybe it was different with the military side, or the highest levels, but for the rest of us, our (former) job didn’t inspire comradeship. As Aleks had said, when you betray people for a living, you can’t expect trust. I had argued with that definition of what my job entailed, but the general point was correct. Which had become rather ironic, considering the aftermath of that argument. 

So, there we were in the Bar With No Name. I refer to it that way because, as far as I know, it literally doesn’t have a name. In Vorbarr Sultana, bars seem to take a strange pride in refusing to have names or, indeed, any sort of advertising that might suggest they could appeal to anyone. The owners probably know that the alcoholism rates on this planet, combined with every factions need to have it’s own set of unique drinking establishments, means there’s no need to try (or, possibly, it’s something to do with the history of liquor licensing and trying to avoid taxes, but I like my story). 

In parts of the city nearer to spaceports and embassies, a bar called ‘The Bar With No Name’ was just the sort of stupid ‘joke’ that would be seized upon by an owner of such an establishment. I used to visit that sort of place frequently during university with Borya and Aleks, when we were looking for thrills and alien drugs. Most of the time we could shake Borya off quickly, so they’re good memories. 

When I speak, and think, of Aleks, it’s usually of him in all his worst moralistic, obnoxiously naïve glory. But, those who spend their days searching for inconsistencies and absences in a text in order to avoid getting a real job or on the prowl for blackmail, if that was truly all there was to him, why is it that he lingers so often at the edges of my thoughts? Did I just keep him around for the cheap enjoyment that comes from cynically mocking someone who believed in a better world but didn’t know better than to keep falling into the trap of arguing with someone (me) who believed in nothing and thus could devote myself to bringing down his argument on the basis of minor flaws? I mean, in part, yes. I take my pleasure seriously. But I also believe, generally, in speaking badly of the dead. If they wanted to be remembered better, than they shouldn’t have died before me, should they? If I let myself truly remember Aleks as everything he was, as the man who was my friend, I might feel bad. It’s all about thinking about things the right way. 

For example, if I think about it correctly, I can be relieved at Aleks death. Aleks died getting himself shot like an idiot. All his high ideals, all those morals he tried to live by, they truly mattered to him. He didn’t believe in the Vor, but he believed in honor. If he had realized that he had been tricked into betraying the people and the cause he believed in out of sentiment – if he’d known that when I took apart his accusations with a tone full of hurt over his generalizations of my work and hints that I might wish to be different I was, in fact, just as full of it as he’d known before he’d let me fool him to thinking that his anger meant he wasn’t correct… Well, Aleks was the type to think that killing himself could offer some sort of redemption, or, at least, escape from betraying more. Better he died in ignorance for no reason. ‘Better’ here meaning, obviously, ‘better for me’. 

I would like to point out that I could have my little mental digression into death, betrayal and what the difference is between someone dying because they walk into bullets that you’re probably (through somewhat abstract lines of causation) responsible for and them killing themselves out of guilt relating to actions that you’re (somewhat, maybe) key to. I could ponder whether I actually would feel too guilty if the second one happened, and I found out about it. I could, when it comes down to it, get lost in pointless thoughts because the damn Lieutenant didn’t seem to know how to have a simple conversation when he’d been the one to trample on in here in the first place. 

I can’t transcribe the exact dialogue we had at the bar (I couldn’t be expected to remember even if I hadn’t also been thinking of other things), but I know that over the course of an hour I got absolutely nothing useful out of him. Practically the only thing I did get was his name, which is almost the opposite of getting useful information. Sergey Karal was an idiot. Worse, he was an idiot who thought himself clever. The whole plan as I’ve talked about it so far indicates that, so I don’t think I’m letting future knowledge color my statements when I say that here. 

Finally, I dragged him out of the bar. I was well aware that even the illusion of privacy offered by the outdoors might night be enough to transform it from a futile endeavor, but I had to try something. He had looked like he was about to try to get me to pay for the next round of drinks. Outside, he looked as if he thought I was about to kill him and take his valuables. Or to be fair to my proportions, even relative to his, call my bigger friends to kill him and then curse about his lack of anything valuable. Since he had apparently been unconcerned about this potential outcome _inside_ the bar filled with people who hated him, my estimation of his intelligence managed to go down even further, which wasn’t as hard as you might think. I have endless levels of ill-will. 

“So, what do you want from me?” You have to ask these questions straight out, sometimes. He looked even more alarmed, probably remembering what his mother had told him was sold in bars in big cities. If I had a sense of civic duty I would have felt compelled to write a note saying that he should only be sent undercover to illicit meetings as cover for a more experienced agent who could shore up their disguise by killing him as an obvious spy. Luckily for him, I don’t believe in civic duty. 

He straightened his uniform. 

“Certain recent events have left us unfortunately understaffed.” Even in his faked accent, he managed to convey the fact that they blamed _us_ for _forcing_ Imperial Security into the position of top guard dog on planet. It must be so hard for them. “Proper messaging is vital at such troubled times. There is some concern that the Emperor’s imperial subjects are not receiving the help they need to deal with recent tragedies. It is hoped that the royal funeral ceremonies could serve as a common catharsis.” 

Among my many languages, I can translate from ‘complete prick’ with remarkable speed and accuracy. “So, you want to get your messaging around the prince all straightened out. At the same time, it would be nice if people could shut up about all their relations who died in a useless and stupid war, which they should really have gotten over by now. And you found out that gutting the smooth propaganda machine with a blowtorch has left you with a smoking mess. _And_ they sent an offensively low-level agent to ‘fix’ it. Or is it a ‘Sergey for Serg’ sort of thing.”

Karal flushed, probably trying to figure out which part of what I had just said infuriated him the most. An amateur mistake. “No one is trying to tell anyone to ‘get over’ the war, or their losses. If the ceremonies for the prince are disrupted, it’s an attack on all our attempts to heal.”

He sounded like he meant it, which made sense. He looked just the right age to have probably sat stewing resentfully about how all his friends had the exciting job of going off to blow up other people for glory only to get an extra heaping of guilt when it turned out they’d actually gone off to be blown up themselves. He’d probably leapt at the job – the one you’ll notice he still hadn’t offered a good description of to me – in hope of trying to find some personal peace. I could’ve told him to follow the example of the professionals and just accept the ghosts hanging around.

I clapped sarcastically. “Very moving. You got your first newspaper editorial right there. It’s almost at a low enough level for them to print it. I know it’s terribly crass, but you still haven’t gotten into the specifics of why you came to our little bar, and what you can pay for what you want.” I imagine that in his village ‘currency’ probably means shiny rocks and sexual favors, so I was sympathetic to the confusion he must feel about adjusting to big city economic realities. 

“I thought it might be better to see what can be salvaged from old connections to media outlets rather than to try to start with a completely clean slate at this already complicated moment.” The gritted teeth really made it. I wondered if it had been his idea. Maybe his boss was making him try to carry it out himself in punishment, that sounded like his sense of humor. “With a chance for a clean slate for the person who helps.” It was a bad offer, but the best I was likely to get. And even a fool like Karal knew that. 

I smiled at him. “Lucky you, I’m just the man for the job.”

He managed to straighten his spine even more. Even before he spoke, I recognized the patented ‘here’s where I can pull out what I read in your file’ look. I had known it would come sooner or later. “Yes, I saw that you do have certain connections. Though I’m not sure if you’ll be a natural fit, we’re not trying to _ruin_ any lives.”

He clearly thought that was some sort of devastating attack. I rolled my eyes. “I’d start to suspect you might not be a very good fit for your job, but I’ve been assuming that from the beginning.”

* * *

Sergey-for-Prince-Serg wasn’t talking about my former job in his oh-so-clever personal attack. If you can call it that. He also clearly hadn’t seen, or, less likely, ImpSec didn’t have, a full transcript of what had happened. If he had, he would’ve known that my aunt had delivered the words with a lot more skill. The theater truly lost out by never having that woman on stage.

First off, the setting had been completely different. We had been in the parlor, which was pregnant with a long history of dressing downs and architectural flourishes meant to accent your unimportance. For the sake of the holy, there was even a family portrait to stare reprovingly down at me. No backstreet could even start to compare.

My aunt had both a handkerchief to flourish wildly and a sofa to half-swoon on at regular intervals. Her standard tactic when there was a conversation where there was a chance someone might say something unthinkable, that is, not in line with what she wanted. 

“I can’t believe, after everything we’ve done for you, that you would destroy this family!” She managed that line with such fair that even my uncle, standing by to be disapproving in a masculine fashion, had to pat her shoulder in congratulations. I think they were pretending it was supposed to be a consoling gesture, which makes the fact I didn’t actually start laughing a heroic feat. 

“You destroyed this family with lies, I’ve done nothing but shine light in the darkness!” There are moments in your life that you recognize you only have one chance to be properly dramatic. I don’t regret seizing it, but I do know it means that, in some ways, I’ll never have quite as good a line as I did at eighteen. I was lying, of course, but that just leant my dramatic pointing more weight. That was shortly before I was ejected from the house.

Even now, the whole incident is all very melodramatic in my memory. I couldn’t fully say why. As Sergey had so correctly implied, the Ministry ruined people’s lives on the regular. As did his dear ImpSec. And both simply took their fair share (or a bit more, according to dramatic radicals who disprove of governmental murder). But that’s all business – with varying amounts of pleasure, to suit. Setting off a bomb in your own family home is seen as a little more unusual. If it’s a metaphorical bomb, anyway, a literal one might be less so. Or maybe it’s just how everyone carried on. The theatrics leak through. 

In simple terms – by which I mean the terms of my self-serving defense – it was a matter of unimportant family secrets that everyone took too seriously. I was six or so when my father died, ending an unpleasant marriage in a theatrical way that suggests it’s inherited from both sides of the family tree. Though, in what I would later work out was the first odd sign, my paternal relatives never pretended to have much interest in us, so I don’t know for sure. Perhaps they just didn’t like my father, which seems reasonable. 

I don’t know how the custody arrangements were worked out, or who decided they had to be worked out in the first place. I assume that it was about money, especially because my grandfather would hate the suggestion that it was about money. Perhaps my grandfather truly believed that a woman could – or should, he did like to make everything into a moral stance – not raise children alone and so, in the absence of her husband, the only responsible thing to do was take the children and put them in the care of, as it worked out in practice, a different woman given very little support by a man when it came to the practicalities of child raising. Truly we traveled from one happy household to another. The ‘we’ in this sentence referring to my older brother Felix, me, and my mother, though I can’t say I saw much of her at any point in my life.

Perhaps I would have seen more of my mother, but she was quickly remarried. Since my grandfather made the ultimate social catch of getting her remarried toa _Vor_ , there was never any suggestion that she take the proof of her fertility (that would be her two sons, if you’re keeping track) with her when she was transferred to her impressive new match. We probably wouldn’t have fit on the cart with all the bags of money needed to keep him going.

One thing I don’t blame my aunt for is not wanting to raise two more children for no good reason. But of her sister’s unwanted urchins, I was always the favorite. As I may have implied before, I’ve always had a charming personality, so it’s understandable, but Felix was undeniably better behaved. Felix listened to the lectures and tried to treat everyone with the gratitude we were informed they were deserved and felt appropriately guilt for the sin that lurked unnamed but felt every time our mother came up. 

I figured out pretty young that the family rumor was that my mother had been less than interested in getting married to the sober man with prospects that her father had picked out for her in favor of an affair with some random peasant who had nothing to recommend him except maybe not being twice her age or blessed with a deep seated contempt of women. Little things. In my opinion, not being our father’s son made Felix a literal lucky bastard. 

When I went away for school, I already planned on ignoring my family’s intention that I use it as the first step to gaining an officer’s rank. When looking at what wouldn’t get me far in the military, I chose comparative lit because the language requirements weren’t a problem and I like books. My facility with languages turned out to be extremely useful, and why I ended up getting a real job after (well, slightly before) graduating. Choosing my degree because I like books turned out to be a terrible idea.

When I say I like books I mean that I like those destruction of the family books. You know the type, the big sprawling traditional epic where you get introduced to a whole family and then get to watch them be destroyed because of their own failings or, as I rolled my eyes, their lack of failings in a cruel world that isn’t ready for virtue. You know, feel good stuff where you get to walk away at the end with joy in your heart. Actually getting the damn degree involved sometimes attending classes where people went on about what it _means_ that you can draw parallels between Barrayaran society and some ancient earth texts and does never having _technically_ had serfs mean about patterns in history at painful lengths (occasionally up to five or six minutes). Sometimes I don’t know why I actually attended several classes. Except for the ones where professors would get all defensive about how the Cetagandans used education during the occupation and how just because it wasn’t stabbing people in the back in ditches doesn’t mean the resistance wasn’t real. That was fun, educational and didn’t hold the threat of anyone using the word ‘paradigm’. 

My first break, I came home with an expanded vocabulary and three gene scans. I proceeded to destroy the reputations of a number of people, several already dead – which I don’t care about, and the lives of my brothers – which I generally believe I do. But I was well aware of what I was doing and who would be affected by it. I’ve never been interested in claiming ignorance of who would be most hurt, so I can’t argue that much against accusations that I didn’t care _that_ much. 

_Felix_ didn’t know general family rumor was that he was a bastard. He definitely didn’t expect to learn, at the very dinner where he had brought the girl he was hoping to gain our family’s consent to court to meet his brother, that our uncle had been more ‘fond’ of his wife’s sister than he usually appeared to be of his wife. That courtship didn’t last. Understandably, I wouldn’t want to be related to our uncle, either. 

As for Pieter – well, when the information about Cetagandan ancestry was made known, his father had two options. Since his wife had one son who wasn’t the product of her legal marriage, he chose the ‘kicking out a fourteen-year-old who looked exactly like him on the basis that his mother was obviously a whore and so he was some stranger’s bastard’. Or, as I call it, the expected route. I turned out to be related to exactly the people I’d always been told I was related to, so, really, it could be argued that I suffered the worst revelation. Though I didn’t try that argument when giving a reason for why I’d come back to school so early. 

You can’t always expect outsiders to sympathize properly with family drama.


	3. in which the basic politic unit remains that guy you know from school, or keeping your foot in the door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yan remains a terrible person. Mentions of abuse of authority for personal reasons, though that's also basically his whole job.

Lieutenant Sergey Karal not yet twenty-five, only recently made lieutenant and just as recently made a member of Imperial Security. He came from a pathetic mountain ‘village’ that eked out survival in the same way as all the other dismal little backwaters, whatever local variation. He’d managed to make it to officer in the dramatic rush around Komarr and had been promoted again after the disaster of Escobar made superiors desperate. He was extremely ill-suited to his job. And I got all that without a file. 

The lack of file is one of the more obvious reasons I might give to help others understand the obvious mistake of his position. I could have figured out most of what I just said through mostly basic observation, though my ability to pinpoint where the hovel time forgot he grew up in was helped by my ear for accents. He put his heart into it, but he hadn’t come close to actually erasing his origins yet. But, as I said, you barely needed training to put it together. You wouldn’t, in fact, need any training at all as he basically told me his whole life story. It was clearly an attempt to make up for having used information he gained from my file. 

Honestly, Karal’s guilt was almost more pathetic than his life story. No ImpSec agent worth the silver in their eyes would feel bad about that (and there silver content was zero, so we’re talking about an extremely low bar that he was flopping around next to like a fish who didn’t understand the test but was still managing to fail it). Much like my own former job, it’s work you take because you _like_ the rush of knowing more than other people. I’m not saying it necessarily has to get into sexual metaphors, but, personally, I do generally find them more fitting than the whole addition metaphor Tucker used to think was clever. Julia came up with some creative jokes on the topic that likely would’ve sent Karal into a faint. 

It was strange to me how much I sometimes missed Julia. Borya had once laid out the acceptable reasons to miss women. A list, though I would never admit it, had shocked me a bit a nineteen, when I had thought my imagination had captured everything. ‘Someone to talk to’ was not on that list, except for one or two euphemisms. The day Borya isn’t full of shit has yet to come, and his experienced man of the world act was even more mockable back then, but, as an unsentimental sod, I’m usually not one to go around missing _company_. That’s what I have all the voices of the dead hanging around for. 

A proper ImpSec officer doesn’t ‘feel bad’, as a rule. An agent who feels bad about _having information_ takes that about four more levels down. Still, there were faint flashes that could almost let you understand why someone, wrongly, thought that ImpSec might be a good fit when there’s was a sudden need for new bodies. And not just because he did at least have a proper amount of fanatical dedication to all the proper cults. 

Karal had identified and entered the bar that held Borya’s – a respectable newspaper editor and eager font of propaganda – old roommate. As a long-term acquaintance of the man and someone who went along with the pretense that we were friends, I’d like to be able to say that Borya made it to his position through his own natural slime trail and willingness to discard anything that could resemble a spine. Since the newspaper was owned by his father, however, I’m afraid the slime was less his own industry and more the residue that comes when a slug gives birth. If slugs are one of those creatures that split into two when they reproduce. I couldn’t say, nor do I care. Though I will say that as a creep without principles who was happy to create exactly what the emperor might want the people to think he was thinking on any given day, his father was supporting a natural talent with his nepotism. 

Borya had edited the newspaper back in university. He had always been sure that his editorials touched on the important issues, like calling for the strictest possible crackdown on any signs of disloyalty. He had also written poetry, published anonymously (as his roommate, I’d discovered his hidden work, a secret that had brought a sparkle to my smile). It was good poetry, shockingly. 

My personal taste in poetry runs towards the traditional. Anyone who says that the old formals mean that anyone can write them is a complete hack with no understanding of poetry or emotion. ‘Oh, it has rhymes’ isn’t an insult, it’s making it obvious that the speaker has no understanding of word choice. Borya’s work, on the other hand, was a new, stripped down style (nothing like his editorials, then or now). But he had managed to cut straight to the heart with just a phrase. Pretty impressive from a man without a soul. 

Aleks had said that he wasn’t sure if I was angry at being made to feel something, or because it was Borya who had done it. That was early in our friendship. Later, he understood that I only like works of art that make me feel. During one of the fights we had in the last year of school he’d said it was because I could put any real feeling there instead of using it on anything real. That was just like him, completely correct but in a way that easily ended with him feeling bad about his claims. 

If he wanted, after we’d left school, he could have had his poetry vanity published and gone around being invited to slightly dangerous parties. Instead, he chose to devote himself to propelling his newspaper to new lows. I had a few of his recent polemics on the failures of the Ministry of Political Education saved specially. Just in case I decided to take up scrapbook making. He was exactly the man to go to when you might need someone to sell out his colleagues. 

“At this this time of night, he’s probably still at his ‘club’.” I deploy finger quotes only when really necessary, talking about Borya often threatened to leave my fingers aching. At least it got Karal back on some sort of track, one trailing after me.

“But we’re heading for his home.” Karal sounded honestly confused. It was almost a physical pain. 

“Obviously. It’s the best time to go.” This applied even when you weren’t searching for something. It’s always good to start from a position that underlines your power in a conversation. 

Karal hesitated. “Perhaps we shouldn't. There could be trouble.” 

He had read my file. I had spent our entire acquaintanceship making it perfectly clear what I thought of him, and what I thought about the suggestion I should feel bad about anything in my file. Yet he was still trying to spare my feelings. Even I was slightly shocked at just how blatantly bad at his job he clearly was. 

When I knocked on the door, Karal looked almost ready to try to pull me away. This after several silent minutes of sideways looks that had done nothing to downplay his slightly weaselly looks. Borya was much better looking. To be fair, though I protest on subjective grounds, Borya is also considered better looking than me. I blame our societies obsession with height and specific musculature. Perhaps Karal thought that the gap between our appearances would make Julia opening the door an even harder burden for me to suffer. I did mention his devotion to a wide range of nonsense. 

Julia was wearing a less dramatically lowcut dress than usual, though careful tailoring made sure that modesty didn’t get in the way of preferred attack posture. Karal certainly seemed even more alarmed. Julia ignored his shock, focusing on the more important presence of his uniform and my smug assurance that I’d found my way out of my latest… little difficulty. Her return look wasn’t free from irony, but she did invite us in. 

Karal perched on the edge of a seat. Had had realized that sitting down had been a bad move, but he hadn’t been able to withstand Julia’s pointed expectations. It was always nice to see her at work. I had my feet propped up on the sofa armrest, because you can hope to leave behind a little water damage. Julia had her pipe out and was lounging in what Borya no doubt considered to be his chair. You could just tell from how the leather was worked. 

“Things are working out?” I said, never one to abandon social niceties when they could be useful. 

“Exactly as could be hoped. More, even. You always underplaying, I take it as hope for others to message your ego.” Even after years in the city Julia has held onto her thick Greekie accent, for various reasons. Most of them have to do with confusing expectations. When I’m feeling romantic, I fancy that she sometimes puts it on extra strong with me, as a reminder of how much it had put me off when we first met. I had told her she sounded like a hick, she said I sounded like a complete prick, I said that at least one of us was sure to be correct. 

Julia liked to say that I had come on with a particular kind of confidence made to make her gamble that I had money to go along with it. After I’d used Ministry resources to harass a few of her competitors, I fancy that the pointedness of the comment was modified by some warmth. It’s the small romantic gestures that can keep a relationship going. 

“I didn’t want to inflate your hopes, he could’ve gotten over his little rivalry.” 

Juila gave that the contemptuous snort it richly deserved. “Ha, always so funny. Always the big gifts that you couldn’t afford and better food and having to imply tales of your many sexual failures, it is lucky he is so good for work.”

“As if you don’t love that all.”

“You _knew_ about this?” Karal finally broke in, horrified. 

“It was my suggestion.” I said. Julia threw a shoe at me. 

“Always taking credit.” 

“Only when it’s deserved. And I can get away with it.”

Karal continued to look horrified, though possibly he thought he was hiding it. Some people can’t deal with a little light flirting. 

“You… suggested the relationship. Based off competing against the image of your former… relationship?” See? Flashes of being able to put together a clue, no use in using it effectively. 

Julia shrugged, in her practiced way. “It would not be an arrangement I would suggest if Borya was a man with more power over me than he has, but, as it is, it has been quite productive. Good for you, yes? Otherwise a Lieutenant would not be enough to get you past the door. Especially not this… weedy one.” She could convey all her mockery over the man _I_ was currently using to get ahead in two words. I bowed my head to acknowledge the point scored. But, like Borya, he had his uses. “Why is it you are here?”

Karal made an effort. I had already noted it as one of his poorer qualities. “There have been rumors of possible – disruptions. To the ceremonies. Possibly coordinate through the press. Different newspapers, obviously. But it must be a business were everyone knows each other.” He didn’t trail off, but he’d obviously realized that he wasn’t fully sure of why we were in Borya’s house, having just followed my lead. Since he clearly didn’t understand the actual problem he was facing, I was basically doing him a favor. I blame the drinks and his pathetic attempts to do something for such sentimental turns of phrase, but at least he probably wouldn’t appreciate it if I pointed it out. 

I was just about to start moving towards the good stuff, when the front door was slammed with such force that we could hear it from the parlor. Julia and I exchanged looks. Borya was too dramatic to be certain that you could predict something truly interesting. Karal practically leapt out of his skin. 

Borya hadn’t taken off his coat before walking into the parlor, even though he was dripping wet. He seemed slightly dazed, and not just because he’d walked into his home to find me, which can be a bit much for some people to handle. He was less interested in the specific party than the fact there was one for his announcement. 

“The Emperor is dying.” 

I was still rolling my eyes at Borya’s dramatic pretentions when Julia poked me with her pipe. Karal, as willing to live down to my expectations as Borya, had gone from alarmed to a full-on panic attack. And I was the one who had to get him sensible again. It really was all very embarrassing.


	4. in which you can just tell people what they want to hear and they'll think it genius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having moved past certain... circumstances, can get back to the worst people! They continue to be the worst. Mentions in this chapter of drug use, continuing background deeply dysfunctional families and the secret police being what they are.

When I was younger, I was concerned enough about not being able to cope with my emotions that I paid good money for unauthorized books on psychology and therapy as smuggled through the spaceport. It turned out my genetic based fears were generally unfounded. While I appreciate the emotional resilience, I could’ve spent that money on something way more fun. I’m just not particularly good at being depressed, whatever the dramatic circumstances. 

I did try, for a bit. Father’s legacy wouldn’t have been enough to spare me from needing a job, but there was some ready money. Felix had never used it. Before, perhaps because he remembered more and his attachment to our mother or just because of who he is, after everything, he had too much pride to take any money from me. 

Felix didn’t take part in any of the dinner theatrics and even if he’d been invited into the parlor, he wouldn’t have said anything. He brought my coat out, because it was raining and it was a walk to the nearest transport, depriving me of the chance to be dramatically soaked but that would’ve just been uncomfortable. His former fiancé was already former by then, always very practical. He didn’t say anything. Felix knew that was the way to win. I hadn’t quite realized yet – he’d never done it seriously before. 

So, when I got back to school, I tried on a bit of the self-destructive seeking of oblivion to blot out the guilt of the whole thing, but, honestly, there wasn’t much. There’s a constant stream of editorials in the newspapers that frame spaceports as dens of vice and destruction of the good Barrayaran soul, I think they have a file full of them when they need to fill up some space, which could very well be true for their definition of a good Barrayaran soul. ‘A year spent experimenting with alien drugs’, to them, sounds far worse than if I’d taken the traditional route of attempted alcohol poisoning. But in terms of actual effects, it was far healthier, and I didn’t drop my class ranking or wake up having gotten mugged for wandering in the wrong part of the city. Though I do attribute the times when it feels like I can almost see Aleks to the number of rounds we did with what’s best described as the party version of Fast-Penta, which is better than early signals of a psychotic break. 

Borya had usually stuck to the alcohol poisoning. Borya loved his father and wanted to make him proud, proof that we were clearly roomed together as an experiment in pure incompatibility. Aleks suggested that I was jealous of him, a concept so horrifying I chose to take as projection. Aleks, being who he was, admitted that it wasn’t an unfair accusation. Aleks’ parents didn’t understand the boy who they’d worked to make incomprehensible to them. He had been given opportunities they never had, and it was a constant struggle to them that he spent his time saying that it was unfair that they had never had those opportunities and that the Barrayaran social structure needed radical improvement. He believed in his cause, but he didn’t deny the distant hurt and made him sympathetic both to others at odds with their families and to people who he judged unfairly though jealousy. This sort of thinking is what led him to friendship with both me and Borya, which just goes to show his parents were probably right about the lack of benefits in higher education. 

Still, despite the accusations of the great unwashed, a cosmopolitan attitude doesn’t necessarily mean one has no feelings about the Emperor. I remember talking about it once, with a clerk from the Betan Embassy. This was back soon after I was first recruited, when I was still doing more active ‘fieldwork’. My boss needed someone who could talk with aliens without fleeing in fear and confusion if they bring up confusion over the Barrayaran instance on the existence of strict binaries especially in areas of gender and sexuality. You would think that he’d have a bigger pool who could stand up to the horrors of conversing with a lonely young man who wanted a more exciting job, but I’m not complaining about being called on. 

I didn’t even have to lie about who I was. He did bring up that he worried about it, ethically, what with what he’d heard, but that was easy. I just smiled and said that names always sounded strange and ministry work could have unnecessary drama but that I doubted it was truly doing anything different from some more softly named organization back on Beta colony, propaganda isn’t a bad word and it’s just an obsession with the military that makes it sound so aggressive. He believed me or wanted to, which meant I didn’t have much sympathy. 

The Emperor, as I told him, does mean something to me. He represents a certain ethos, shorthand for a whole series of events under a reign. You don’t need a personal relationship with the cult of Emperor to feel his mark. Even when it’s likely not strictly fair. Well, I didn’t exactly say that last part because I never got around to discussing details of my family. Considering Karal’s tears, I assume he liked to claim different associations. I’ll give him this, the tears ruined Borya’s attempts to be the center of attention. 

“Why don’t you get some glasses. We’ll need to drink to the Emperor’s health,” I said, interrupting his sulk. 

Borya took a moment to work out the variables. He’s smart enough not to go with his immediate instinct to fight against being ordered around in his own home, especially by me. Karal was with ImpSec. The uniform mattered a lot more than the man having a breakdown in it, especially when I was sitting next to it. Borya knew better than to underestimate me. He was also probably wary of seeing too much and annoyed at having his announcement not greeted with flattering surprise over his ‘connections’. 

Julia had already vanished, having calculated that there wasn’t enough benefit in what Karal might say to make up for having to deal with emotions. She must be doing well; I suppose newspapers were a useful next step as she worked to diversify her interests. 

That left me. I stared at the ceiling for a bit, thinking of possibilities, before Karal finally spoke again. 

“I suppose that explains the orders. Trouble is more likely to come from higher ranks. The Ministries have their recent… example,” his look was excessively tactful, “But there are a number of Vor lords who are likely to get less quiet about their eligibility. It’d be more complicated for most of the prole groups to act now, at least the ones likely to be connected to a paper.” I’d give him this much, Karal could line things up clearly, while pretending that he hadn’t had a breakdown.” 

“That’s expecting a certain degree of intelligence.”

“Which can never be relied upon, so we’ll be watching. If nothing breaks overs the next – few months, you’ll have earned the job. There’s a push for unity, anyway. Bringing people back into the fold is more useful than leaving stray threads.” 

If I was in the habit of handing out obvious tips, I could’ve pointed out that telling me this wasn’t in his interest, but I’m not and, besides, I’m pretty sure he’s a lost cause. Besides, I’d already guessed, and he was clearly working towards another point. I waited. Karal hadn’t shown any hint that he was capable of hiding any thought so far. 

“There’s going to be a war,” he said, practically on cue. 

“You’re the soldier,” I said, because I can follow the lines of the play.

“Security is more than that.” He actually touched the damn silver eyes. At least he didn’t rip them off, melodrama’s all well and good in its place, but not in someone I need to keep working. “I’m sorry I brought up your past. It was hypocritical of me.” I managed to restrain my twitch, because I’m a professional, but I wished then that the others hadn’t fucked off so someone could appreciate how hard it was for me not to roll my eyes. “Or more about me than you, anyway. There was this man, back home. He used to be my best friend, but we took separate paths. I didn’t realize how separate until he started raving about how the war was an opportunity to make ‘changes’ and how we had to strike to overthrow the Emperor. As if the Emperor hasn’t done more for us than anyone, as if we didn’t already have so many new chances.”

If I had been Karal’s old ‘friend’, I would’ve told him that the old ways weren’t dead, just buried under the shine of the new city. Or maybe they were dead, and the rot was infecting the water of the lake. Though that’s stretching a metaphor and I wouldn’t call our ‘new’ Barrayar a fresh spring, just a different type of poison. But I didn’t want to throw off his monologue. 

Karal shook his head, as if remembering the shock again. “As if any good world could come from using the deaths of so many loyal soldiers as an excuse for more violence and some incoherent political philosophy. I had to stop him. Stop them. It was the right thing to do. But it was betrayal of who we’d been. And now, there’s still going to be fighting, again.”

As hard as it was, I held back the easy responses. “You’re not an idiot.”

Karal frowned, completely failing to properly appreciate how hard that was for me to say in a non-sarcastic tone of voice. “You’ve called me an idiot a lot since we’ve met.”

“When?” 

He stared at me. “At the bar?”

“I was drunk.”

“And when I told you about my sisters.”

“Oh, right.” 

“And you’ve implied it in almost everything you’ve said.”

That last one was fine, at least. “ _Implication_ is nothing.” Karal looked deeply confused, a natural expression for him, but I waved away objections. “My _point_ is that you know full well that you stopped you ‘friend’ from doing something stupid and pointless that would’ve probably led to more people dying. Just because there’s still going to be a war doesn’t mean you should start dragging up old guilt. That won’t be of any use to anyone. You have to think of the future, not the past. There’s still an Imperial family that needs security.”

Karal rubbed at his face, straightening his shoulders. “You’re right. Thank you.” 

I think he was sincerely grateful for my pep-talk. He had seen something new in me, a side that had previously been hidden under cynicism and detachment. I’d seen the look before and recognized it easily. As I’ve said, once or twice, Karal was an idiot.


	5. epilogue, or in which everyone gets what they deserve, when 'everyone' is me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a hopefully heartwarming end to this tale of two unlikely friends! (they're not friends). All previous warnings definitely apply. Especially the ones for deeply screwed up families, cheerfully working for the secret police and general dickery

I grew up in Ezar Vorbarra’s Barryar. Perhaps, some might say, it’s unfair to judge him for that. Obviously, the only people who would suggest that are aliens and the criminal class that the Ministry of Political Education had spent so many loyal years trying to crush under our boot. As the traditional Barrayaran saying goes, the only person you can trust less than alien is a man who doesn’t understand the importance of the Emperor. You can tell it’s a traditional Barrayaran saying because of the absence of women from the equation. As I’d had to explain to some untrustworthy aliens, it was not, as they might assume, just a matter of a sexist society using ‘man’ to stand for ‘people’. It’s far more pointedly sexist than that. 

It was my mother who explained oaths to me, on one of the rare occasions that she was in the company of her children unchaperoned. Not to suggest that she would’ve often sought to spend time with us even if it hadn’t generally come with the looming presence of another family member. I suppose she might have loved us, though I think that would be an unfair expectation. But whatever the feelings she kept so admirably unreadable; we were a traditional family. Even without the disgrace, it was generally felt that a mother’s influence is probably damaging for a boy once he’s gotten old enough that he could probably survive his mother’s death back when humanity was just wandering the plains of old Earth. 

Despite my general aversion to my grandfather’s philosophies, I have to admit that he wasn’t always wrong with this one. As I’ve mentioned, Jo had been rather tolerable, for one of my relations, before the horrible death in a completely pointless war. A product, I’m sure, of spending very little time with his parents. Distance allows for the illusion that certain hearts are capable of fondness, something a close view made far more doubtful. 

Still, I do remember the times with my mother. There was usually a certain routine. Me, telling tales of various small successes in an attempt to win the acknowledgement that served as a more than adequate replacement for affection. Felix sitting in silence, old enough to worry about everything she didn’t say about her life that was so separate from ours. Also, he’s the type of person to worry about other people, which I have tried, and generally succeeded, not to be from a young age. But he wasn’t there that day. It was just the two of us, sitting together on the stairs as she told me that a woman’s oath, the words that made up her honor, were never really her own. They were always tied to a man’s. Grandfather said much the same thing, with some frequency, but even back then I knew that the same words could mean completely different things. Or I figured it out later and project it back on my memory of events to fashion a better story. 

My mother vanished shortly after. In one of the very few times Felix contacted me since the little incident where I, to some points of view, ruined the lives of some of the few people I had no reason to in a not particularly successful effort to make other people feel bad – or, to take another perspective, the moment that probably got my resume a second look, he said that she sent him a message. Apparently, she’d left the planet, setting up a new life far away. I think he might have been a bit upset over the whole thing. Personally, it’s why I look back on my memories of her with some affection. 

I can’t say that about many of my memories of growing up in Emperor Ezar Vorbarra’s Barrayar. As a citizen who was allowed to spend years setting up others to be imprisoned or killed for disloyalty, I view his long reign mostly through that prism. The Ministry of Political Education doesn’t accept applicants who aren’t able to believe in the Emperor’s influence in every aspect of our lives. You should see the textbooks written by that sort of person. There was probably a gap when you could get away with it, when the ImpSec was still working out the kinks in their newly expanded duties.

* * *

Borya eventually returned, much like an unpleasant sexually transmitted disease. A metaphor I use without any personal experience, thank you. Unlike the backward mountain yokel ancestors Karal no doubt prayed to everyday, some of us are well aware that we’ve left the Age of Isolation behind and take full advantage of the fact. Other people probably still believe that birth control is code for harboring genetic impurities. I couldn’t say for certain how many people in that room fell into that category, but I suspected at least one. Borya had always been an uptight prick, for all that he liked to wave around his cosmopolitan credentials. 

And, to get back to my point, as I said later, Borya had also always had the personality of an unpleasant bacteria. Well, actually I said ‘face’ but Karal, who clearly had never had the concept of a metaphor explained to him, made confused comments about his general attractiveness, by Barrayaran standards, so I had to modify my descriptor slightly. At that point, Karal had grown to know Borya somewhat, as can be implied by the fact that he didn’t argue with that one. Though as I still harbor doubts whether he’s gone beyond perhaps holding hands, I suspected he was also working off secondhand information. 

In a rare display of understanding his function, Borya did remember to bring several bottles of a quality that wouldn’t immediately blind you. I must say that watching him peer nervously around the doorframe to make sure that Karal had gotten over his disturbing display of emotions was highly entertaining. Watching Karal trying to inch even further away from Julia, who is not one to let people drink without her, was almost as good. It put me in the right frame of mind to enjoy the toasts. 

We all were drinking to the Emperor’s memory, of course, though we framed it as ‘health’, to prevent Karal from having another breakdown or competent ImpSec members stopping by later with questions. With a few more added in for the Princess and the health of the young Emperor-to-be-possibly-not-killed-just-as-young (and a careful lack of any mention of the Prince, Karal perhaps gained _more_ political acumen after a few drinks). I’ve rarely been called a sentimentalist. To be completely accurate, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been called a sentimentalist in a non-sarcastic manner, but I often like a good round of toasting. 

A proper toast is a work of art. As I know more than the first thing about art, it’s never surprised me that many people are incredibly bad at it. There’s a reason I tended to leave office parties early, and it’s not just that if I wanted to see that much dicksucking I could watch a vid. Usually speaking metaphorically, though not always, especially at the holiday parties. Probably because of all rote toasts to the Emperor’s greatness and slightly too fervent statements about Barrayar’s brilliant future. I don’t go in for genuine patriotism as a rule, and that was always a particularly embarrassing brand. Another thing I don’t miss about my old job. 

Karal, Borya and Julia might not have been the group I would pick to spend time with socially if I hadn’t been in desperate enough straights that the thought of talking to people related to me by blood hadn’t crossed my mind, but the toasts weren’t bad. Borya knows a few turns of phrase, and both Karal and Julia, who otherwise I hate to put together in a category, were from bleak outcrops of what certainly can’t be called civilization and so involved a lot of time spent coming up with toasts at funerals for people tragically murdered by goats. Karal still had embarrassing traces of sincerity, but the drinks were flowing freely enough that we could pretend otherwise. 

The mood was quite cheerful all around, really. Karal had managed to convince himself that I had a hidden ‘better side’, which allowed him to feel less guilty about using the powerful threat of the ImpSec that even a sad specimen like embodied as long as he wore that uniform to get me gainful employment. He also was the optimistic sort, and after a low moment, had dragged his mind away from the inevitable war. 

Borya was on the way to convincing himself that by ‘employing me’ he would still hold some sort of power in the arrangement, instead of having to face up to how fast every institution crumbled before the representative of a dying man. He’d also gotten to announce the Emperor’s death, even if the reception hadn’t been as impressive as he might have liked. 

Julia, who could always spot coming hostilities, was full of plans of how to make more than a bit of profit off the trouble. She also always enjoyed the prospect of violence among the upper classes. 

As for me, well, a little work at a newspaper wasn’t the worst prospect in the world. It had been rather a long time since I’d dipped into creative fiction, beyond the limits of an officially secret report. I raised a glass to the ghosts of those we’d lost. Aleks had once said that a completely lack of any sort of principles could get a man far in life. Despite other claims he’d made in the heat of various moments, I’ve always been able to admit when he was right.


End file.
